You Say Euro, I Say Eiro: All is not well in the house that euro built

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From Deutsche Welle

Jane Conway (ncy) | www.dw-world.de |  Deutsche Welle.

You Say Euro, I Say Eiro: All is not well in the house that euro built

The European Central Bank is trying to curb varying spellings of the word
euro. But Latvia, which has fought hard to keep its own language, says no
amount of EU rhetoric will change it back from eiro. Latvia's government
has decided to change the euro to fit their language, in which Europe is
Eiropa and euro eiro. But the European Central Bank and other EU bodies
have told the country it has gone too far. Latvia should use the standard
written form when it adopts the currency in 2008, the EU says.



Latvia, however, has remained steadfast, saying it will take the issue to
the European Court of Justice if necessary. It's a matter of protecting
both national heritage and EU ethics, according to Latvian Education
Minister Ina Druviete. "It's not an issue of monetary policy. It's an
issue of Latvian language policy, and we have to protect our languages,"
said Druviete. "The motto of the European Union is unity in diversity, and
languages are the most specific representation of this diversity. I regret
that officials from European institutions were so ignorant because it's
not a detail. Language is a representation of national identity, and any
interference in such a subtle sphere would have very serious
consequences."

Battle for Latvian

Language protection is an extremely sensitive issue in Latvia. During
Soviet occupation, Moscow forced Russian on the nations that made up the
USSR. The result was the near death of the Latvian language, not to
mention the massive displacement of tens of thousands of Latvian people to
make space for Russians to move in and impose a Russian-language school
system. After Latvia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991,
there was a countrywide drive to re-establish the Latvian language. Today
it's spoken by two-thirds of the population. Latvian belongs to the Baltic
group of Indo-European languages. "It's a language with ancient spelling
traditions, and we have no such diphthong as 'eu' in our language,"
Druviete explained.


Jane Conway (ncy) | www.dw-world.de |